


Seventy-Five years

by HyourinmaruIce



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Up (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 11:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyourinmaruIce/pseuds/HyourinmaruIce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The UP preface rumbelled</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seventy-Five years

She had always had her husband. They been together for as long as she could remember, all the way back to a little girl who was afraid she would ruin someone’s day by sharing the story she’d recently read. He wasn’t her husband then though…

 

She’d been eight when she had run outside the movie theater with a grin on her a face and a destination in mind. She wanted to go to the library, the movie had reminded her of her favorite book and she wanted to reread it. Her father, her mother had died a year ago from cancer, was highly against his little girl running around in a library while he would be trying to catch up. He said no.

Not that she listened, instead she had giggled and run away from her father with amazing velocity. A little girl by the age of eight knew how to duck and avoid questing hands, so she was out of the parking lot and heading towards the abandoned library at the edge of town.

It had been her favorite place to be. It had been run down with holes in the ceiling that let rain fall on some books, mold never seeming to form to her eyes yet still there within ruined tomes. It had been hers and hers alone for quite some time before that, so she had barged in and stumbled to her favorite bookshelf to grab her book…

And it hadn’t been there. She had to do a double take, wondering at the empty spot on the shelf where it was supposed to reside.

A voice popped up behind her, “Hello!”

She whirled around, her shoes squeaking from the earlier walk through watery sections of the library. There was a boy there, about her age, with brown hair and eyes. Smaller than most their age, as she was guessing he was somewhat close to the eight year mark she had passed a few days ago, she wondered why a ballon was strapped to his wrist. Her eyes didn’t leave him, he squeaked and took a step away.

He was timid, clutching her book to his chest like it might leave him, and he was afraid of her. Well she couldn’t let that go on, she took a large step forward.

“Hi there! My name’s Belle, who are you?” She stuck out a hand and waited for the boy to stick his out with trepidation and dis-ease.

He wouldn’t talk as he took her hand and gently shook, “That’s my book you know,”

He quickly pulled his hand away and clutched the book tighter to him.

She rolled her eyes and huffed, “It’s not like I don’t know how to share you know, I share very well. Even with my cousin Mary,” Who would have killed her if she heard about being called Mary and not Mary Margaret.

He nodded his head, relaxing just enough that she smiled, “What’s your name?”

He shook his head and she huffed again, “I gave you mine!”

He took a few steps away, into a water logged book that made his foot jerk so he ended up slipping and tumbling onto his butt. Her book was safe, secure beneath his hands, but his balloon broke away from the force of the fall and headed up towards the upper section of the library.

He moaned quietly, staring up after it with a frown.

“Let’s go get it!” She shouted, causing him to start. He turned to look at her, blinking as if she had just appeared.  
Racing forward, she grabbed one of his hands and pulled him to a standing position before dragging him towards the staircase she knew was in the back. He squeaked, leaving her to wonder why, when she heard the thump of a book.  
“Don’t worry, we’ll get it later,” She nodded to herself as she cast her voice behind her, she continued to drag him up the staircase and towards the hole in the ceiling. The ballon was on the other side, “Go on then,” She pulled him in front of her and shoved him forward.

He stumbled, looking back at her with wide eyes and she wondered whether he was stupid or not. She did a shooing motion with her hand towards the beam that stretched across the gap, she’d learned the motion from her father.  
Timidly, he set one foot across the beam. When the beam didn’t break, he took another… and another. The library door slammed shut, “Belle! Get out here! I told you no!”

With a squeak, he fell off the beam.

Belle sighed.

 

It had been a week or so, running around at hospitals and trying to find out where she lived, before she climbed up to his window and let herself inside. They were friends now, so she had been sure he wouldn’t mind.

There was a tent nearby, with a glowing light beneath. She dived inside and she heard him squeak.

“Hi there!” She giggled, watching him fumble with a flashlight, she noticed a cast on his left foot, “So you broke your foot?”  
He nodded once he had control of the light, gently setting it down to cast light throughout the entire tent. She grinned, “Wanna read my book with me?”

She pulled it out from behind her back, her book with his balloon wrapped around it. He timidly took it from her and untied the balloon, since the helium was leaking out it stayed under the tent.

They read the rest of the night and Belle only noticed the sunset when he nudged her and pointed to the window. She giggled, tugging him towards it and he had to point at his foot for her to remember. She helped him walk instead of dragging him, a small smiled stretched across his face.

“We should go on an adventure together,” She said as she watched pink leap across the sky.

He nodded and pointed to the book that was in his hand, she nodded vehemently in return, “That’s a great idea! Let’s make a promise that we’ll go on an adventure one day! Together to Paradise Falls! Like in the book,”

He looked dubious.

“Don’t back out now! Promise with me! Cross your heart!”

He shook his head, a smile still there as he crossed his heart and held out her book. She shook her head, “You take it!” He tilted his head to look at her before grinning and reaching into his pocket to pull out what looked like a glass chipped cup with a pin on it.

He thrust it at her and she wondered what the story was behind it, looking into his eyes, she didn’t link he was going to tell her.

She nodded and climbed out the window before she headed home.

Thinking of her husband and she as they’d been back then was strange because it had taken her two years to get him to say a word to her. She now knew his name to be Richard, but back then she had called him Rumpelstiltskin after just a month of trying to get his name and for two years he hadn’t said anything about it. They’d giggled, pranked, and read together without him ever uttering a word.

So when they’d been ten, her birthday party was only her father and him, and he’d said, “Happy Birthday Belle!” she had hugged him hard enough that they’d landed on their rumps from his inability to balance.

“Thank you Rumpel,”

“My name is Richard silly,”

 

More thinking about back then lead her to realize a lot of important things happened on their birthdays. His dad’s death when they were twelve, she’d comforted him for a long time after that; her father’s death when she was sixteen, which she was fine with even before it happened; and their engagement.

 

He was smiling at her as she stepped inside the small space. It was his apartment, his mother had kicked him out, and he barely made enough to afford it but she still smiled when she saw that he saved up to buy books. They were randomly scattered about, thrown here and there in loo of a book shelf.

“What’s all this about?”

They’d never dated before that, just been together. She’d try’d to date, but the only thing she’d gotten out of that was being raped. It was funny, she had never been asked to testify because, once arrested, the guy had hung himself. His suicide note had been blurred by tears.

“Come on now,” She giggled, watching his nervous movements.

He just shook his head, his hair in his eyes and blocking her sight of his irises.That made her sad, she loved to watch the colors of his eyes bounce between their usual brown and mischievous gold. She giggled when he stubbed his toe with a howl against the table, setting down her present and moment later and cursing under his breathe.

She shook her head, he flashed her one of his rare but genuine smile before leaving her in the living/bed room. It didn’t take him long to come back out of the kitchen with two T.V. dinners. An open, free laughed escaped her, she was so happy.

Then, when she’d opened his gift and the dinner was cleared away, her mind went blank. Nestled in the soft blue wrapping paper was her book. Not any book that anyone could have gotten her, it was HER book. The one with adventures and true love, the one she had thought her father had thrown in the fire in a huff of rage.

“My book,” She breathed shallowly, “It’s my book,”

Grinning like a maniac, she flipped through the text and landed on what should be the final page… but there weren’t any words there. It was blank, the ending was gone. She looked at him, unsure as to what was wrong with the precious book before her with the binding redone and the words still mostly there.

“The reason I didn’t restore it with the last page,” He flipped blank page over to reveal notebook paper, “Is because I think you should write your own adventure,”

She hadn’t even noticed the book was twice as thick.

In that moment, watching him smile shyly at her, it had been so easy to set the book down and slide her hands across his cheeks. It had been easy to curl her fingers into his brown locks, always soft and touchable, and pull him towards her. It had been effortless to slide her lips across his and not let go when he kissed back. Then, when she had pulled away and began to study his face, there was no awkwardness or uncomfortable atmosphere. It was perfect. He was perfect, and she kissed him again to make sure he knew.

When he began to talk against her lips, she’d giggled and pulled away long enough to hear what he had to say.  
And it had been so right to reply, “Sounds like an adventure,”

 

They got married a year later at a little ceremony barely anyone showed up for. Her family, which was really her cousin’s family, filled her side while only his mom sat on his. He didn’t seem to care (She thought it funny because the only relative he was close to was the one that kicked him out when he was 17).

She sort of jumped him when it was time for the kiss, but when his arms wrapped around her she never felt better.

 

One day, after their honeymoon had been over and they were living together, she saw the for sale sign sticking out of the untrimmed grass. By the time she had turned to her husband, he was on the phone with a smile on his face.

They moved in soon after, their abandoned library getting cleaned up and inner walls added. They painted and restored, working between checks and laughing when it was done and his dragon of a mother nodded her approval.

When his mom had asked about grandkids, Belle had chocked on her ice tea. Her husband, however, just talked idly about them not discussing it together yet so there was ‘No way in hell’ he would talk about it with his mother. Her mother-in-law pouted.

She spent the night on the roof, watching the stars and wondering what would happen if they did have kids of their own. Little Belles and Rumpelstiltskin’s (Richard preferred her nickname), all of them running around.

Her husband joined her later, laying besides her and intertwining their fingers together.

“What do you think?” She whispered after awhile of watching the stars twinkling at them both.

“I think you’ll be a great Mommy,” and, just as much as he was, the answer was perfect.

 

“It’s a girl,” He was sure, he wanted a girl and she didn’t understand why.

“It most certainly is a boy,” She laughed at his frown, listening to his mutterings of mother’s intuition not always being right.

They named him Baelfire, after Rum’s favorite book character. If it had been a girl, Rum insisted that Belle choose the name. At Belle’s assurance it wasn’t a girl, he relented at her picking names.

At five months, two months of listening the the baby, something went wrong. So much pain and blood, she barely remembered half of what the doctors had explained to her.

They’d lost the baby was all she could remember after the fact.

It hit Rum harder than it had hit her, her mind barely able to comprehend and tending towards the wiping of all emotions. She didn’t know how to feel.

He wept though, hiding on the roof after a while. She had to climb after, brushing aside the knocked over boxes and various broken things that littered the attic floor with her foot so she could get to the roof.

When she had laid down beside him, it was almost instantaneous his dragging her close and weeping into her stomach. She had never felt more useless. She carded her hands through his hair and finally let her dam break as she curled around him.

 

It took a few years, a rampage of a hand-built nursery, and the saving of his hand-guilt mobile before they felt okay enough to try again.

A girl named Emma, Mary Margaret insisted upon the name when learning that her daughter was actually a son and she ended up having to name him James. If she’s had Robin’s permission, she would have named him David.

Mid-labor, all Belle had felt was her husbands shoulders against hers, his arms entangled amidst her limbs. The doctors had been kind, encouraging.

Emma died before they could take her home.

The doctors told her that it wasn’t possible for her to get pregnant again.

She would never really know whether that had been for the best or not.

Her husband has still loved kids though, SHE still loved kids, so they took jobs at the local zoo. Her husband had donned a safari hat, being the wilderness tour guide for little kids that would run around and giggle at him. She was the balloon woman, smiling at children who would come running and making them squeal with delight as she handed them their favorite color.

So it went for years, the two of them laughing and giggling with girls and pushing the boundaries between formal and informal clothing. She even managed to get him to wear a bow tie, as long as she would tie it in the morning.  
They ended up with a ritual, she would get dressed in something to attract children, sometimes silly, and he would help her get dressed. She would help him with his hat and tie, they would leave the door together giggling and laughing, racing for the drivers seat of the car.

He took her dancing on her 70th birthday, declaring that they had officially retired and if she wanted to contest it she would have to fight him. She would win if she did, but she didn’t mind retirement so she let him be.  
She took him stargazing for his 70th, a place that wasn’t actually their roof, and giggled when he waved his cane at her for worrying him about his present.

It had hit her, lying beside him on the grass as Orion stared down at then, that he’d given her everything. She had adventure, love, a shoulder…. and she’d never given anything back. Sure, love, but what about their promise… she’d made a promise.

It took five years of doing odd jobs and babysitting, explaining to family why she was working at all, to buy the tickets. On his 75th birthday, she tried to get him on the roof…

And so here they were now, in a hospital with him shoving the book she’d shown to him back at her, her book that had always been his as much as it had been hers. She hadn’t recorded anything in it, but she had seen him writing and when asked he merely winked.

He was smiling at her from his hospital bed, not talking but conveying everything he needed too. He was thanking her, loving her. He didn’t realize though…

That she didn’t know how to live without him.

She’d had her husband her entire life, facing the prospect of losing him was terrifying. Her stomach clenched at the thought, she quaked. She gripped his hand and pressed her forehead against his, using her free hand to gently tie a balloon around his wrist. It wasn’t until after she realized he’d tied one around hers.

 

The pews were empty, everyone had gone home. She ignored the tug of the ballon on her wrist, ignored the quiet talking coming from somewhere other than this room, and she focused on the ground. She stood and watched her feet move forward, watched the way they rose and fell.

She listened to her own pitter patter, she couldn’t walk heavy so the foot falls weren’t loud, and ignored the tug on her wrist. She approached her library, once theirs, and sighed. It was older, the mailbox’s blue and gold handprints faded with the time.

She began up the step-stone walkway.

Within three steps of the porch steps and overhang, she felt the tugging on her wrist lessen.

Two, it was almost gone.

One, she grabbed the string of the gold balloon before it could leave.

She stared up at it for a while, watching the moon and star backdrop. Then, as she was about to step on the porch and into the safety of its overhang, she let go and didn’t watch it float away.


End file.
